On Wednesday, Amazon announced that they are going to discontinue their donation program, AmazonSmile, as part of their efforts to lessen costs.
Since its commencement in 2013, AmazonSmile has contributed approximately $500 million to charities.
Amazon mentioned in a message to their customers on their website that the program has not been successful in achieving the impact they thought it would have.
They explained that due to the wide selection of eligible charities–over 1 million–the impact of their donations was too insignificant. Amazon will be ending AmazonSmile by February 20th.
Despite the economic downturn, Amazon has affirmed its dedication to creating positive change, including providing help during natural disasters, investing in affordable housing, and supporting local community programs.
Simultaneously, CEO Andy Jassy has been examining the company’s outgoings, resulting in large-scale job cuts, a suspension of hiring, and the closure of several projects such as its telehealth services and its video calling device for children.
Amazon cuts 10,000 employees
On Wednesday, Amazon began the latest round of layoffs in its corporate staff, which is expected to be its largest ever. Doug Herrington, head of global retail, and Beth Galetti, head of Human Resources, informed employees of the job cuts in emails, CNBC confirmed.
The company announced earlier this month that it will cut more than 18,000 jobs in total. It looks like the Human Resources and stores departments are going to be the most affected.
Galetti and Herrington said in their memos that all the employees in the U.S., Canada and Costa Rica will be notified about the job cuts by the end of the day.
Employees out of China will be made aware of the situation afterwards, while those in the country will be briefed after the Lunar New Year. The layoffs come after a surge in the number of Amazon personnel in the course of the Covid-19 outbreak.
In November, Chief Executive Officer Andy Jassy announced that the layoffs would be concentrated in the product and recruitment divisions. Jassy is in the process of assessing Amazon’s expenditures in light of the economic downfall and the stagnation of their flagship retail services.
The company has put a halt to corporate workforce recruitment, dropped some trial runs, and reduced the expansion of their warehouses.
The Chief Executive Officer of Amazon, Andy Jassy, has declared that staff cuts will persist throughout the upcoming year.
Andy Jassy, CEO of Amazon, informed workers in a memo on Thursday that the organization will proceed to cut down jobs in the coming year.
He expressed that this decision is the most difficult one they have made throughout his eighteen months of leading the company, since they have been forced to make some tough decisions during the COVID-19 pandemic. He also added that the leadership recognizes that these job cuts affect real people with emotions, desires, and responsibilities.
The corporation has previously informed certain departments, like Devices and Services, that their positions are being terminated, as well as offering some workers the opportunity to take voluntary buyouts as an alternative to layoffs.
According to an individual who is familiar with the situation, Amazon is considering to terminate around 10,000 workers. This is due to the deteriorating economic climate, which has caused a slowdown in several branches of the business, and because the number of employees had risen sharply during the pandemic.
Jassy declared that the job losses will carry on until 2023 since the company is still in the process of its yearly operational planning and executives still need to decide how many other roles will be affected. He added that these decisions will be given to the concerned personnel and departments early in 2023.
He also stated that they have not yet concluded the exact number of roles that will be affected, but that each leader will communicate the details to their respective teams when they have it confirmed.
In an attempt to reduce headcount growth, Amazon has already put a halt on its corporate job openings. Even so, it is still recruiting employees for its warehouses to accommodate the demand during the festive season.
The tech industry has experienced a significant drop in employment opportunities due to the current financial climate. Last week, Meta, the company that owns Facebook, let go of 13% of their personnel, with Twitter, Shopify, Salesforce and Stripe also announcing layoffs.
Google has announced that it will be terminating the jobs of 12,000 employees.
The web search and video streaming giant has decided to provide U.S.-based personnel with 16 weeks of compensation plus two weeks of pay for each year they have been employed with Google, according to Pichai.
Google stock prices increased by more than 5% following the announcement.
At the moment, tech companies are dealing with a variety of issues, including a rise in interest rates and inflation over the past year that has caused tech shares to drop significantly and prompted advertisers to reduce online advertisement expenditure.
Particularly, the higher interest rates from the U.S. Federal Reserve has resulted in a decrease in demand for American tech stocks. The negative macroeconomic conditions has consequently increased pressure on those companies to make significant job cuts.
On Wednesday, Amazon initiated a new round of job terminations that impacted more than 18,000 people. In the same day, Microsoft declared their intention to let go of 10,000 workers.
Twitter, which is headed by Elon Musk, has also taken the same course of action and reduced more than half of its personnel since Musk assumed the role of CEO in October.
Google’s decision to lay off personnel on Friday followed a CNBC report which stated the company was deferring a section of its employees’ year-end bonus payments until March or April instead of paying out the full amount in January.
